Govt: anti-democratic forces plot killings, mayhem in Edo

The Edo State Government said yesterday it had uncovered a plot by “anti-democratic forces” to start high-profile killings ahead of the March 28 and April 11 general elections.

The objective, the government alleged, was not only to sow fear in the minds of All Progressives Congress (APC) supporters but to also make the state ungovernable for Governor Adams Oshiomhole.

In a statement in Benin, the state capital, by Information and Orientation Commissioner Louis Odion, the government said: “The new evil agenda is akin to the one unleashed in 2012 ahead of the governorship election in which the Principal Private Secretary to the governor, Comrade Olaitan Oyerinde, was brutally murdered. Till date, the killers are yet to be brought to justice.

“On the latest hit list are key figures in the administration, APC leaders, a vocal palace chief as well as journalists considered too independent-minded and unwilling to file fabricated stories to promote the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

“To achieve this, hard-boiled cultists, who were contracted to attack and vandalise the Edo House of Assembly quarters last year, have again been recruited and given mobilisation running into millions of naira and other logistics support from Abuja early this week through a local cleric-politician.

“The destabilisation scheme is conceived, funded and directed by a group of PDP leaders based in Abuja alongside their underlings in Edo State in the cold calculation that once the teeming supporters of Comrade Oshiomhole were frightened away, the PDP would then dominate the Edo space.

“The vocal palace chief being targeted, we gathered, is the Esogban of Bini Kingdom, Chief David Edebiri, who is also the leader of the influential Benin Forum. The PDP leaders were said to be uncomfortable with Chief Edebiri’s unrelenting criticism…”